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Authors: Christian Cameron
Tags: Fiction, Historical
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ramble, and my adventure came to an end when I tried to string the bow. I spent the afternoon striving against the power of a man’s weapon and I failed.
So I carried the bow and quiver back down the mountain and sneaked them into his hut, returning the bow to the peg where it hung.
After lessons the next day, I said, ‘Master, I took your bow.’
He was putting away the stylus and the wax sheets he made. He turned so fast that I flinched.
‘Where is it?’ he asked.
‘On its peg,’ I said. I hung my head. ‘I couldn’t string it.’
I never saw his hand move, but suddenly my ear hurt – hurt like fire . ‘That’s for disobedience,’ he said calmly. ‘You want to shoot the bow?’
‘Yes!’ I said. I think I was crying.
He nodded. ‘I’m sending you for more wine,’ he said. ‘When you come back, perhaps we’ll make a bow you can shoot.’ He paused. ‘And we’ll do the dances. The military dances. Now, what letter is this?’ he drew one, and I said ‘Omicron.’
‘Good boy,’ he said.
My ear still hurt, all thirty stades home.
My brother was working in the forge, and he didn’t like it. It’s odd, being brothers. We were alike in so many ways – and we were always friends, even when we were angry – but we wanted different things. He wanted to be a warrior, a nobleman with a retinue and deer hounds. He wanted the life Mater wanted for him. And all I wanted to be was a master smith. Irony is the lord of all, honey. I got what he wanted, and he got a few feet of dirt. But he was a good boy, and he was in the forge doing the job that I would have sold my soul to do. That’s the way of it when you are young.
I showed Mater my letters and sang her the first hundred lines of the Iliad , which Calchas had also taught me, and she nodded and kissed my cheek and gave me a silver pin.
‘At least one of my sons will grow up a gentleman,’ she said. ‘Tell me of this Calchas.’
So I did. I told her all I knew about him, which proved, under her Medusa-like glare, to be little enough. But she smiled when I said he ate black bread and bean soup.
‘An aristocrat, then,’ she said happily. Not my idea of an aristocrat, but Mater knew some things better than her eight-year-old child.
I stayed at home for two days while Pater gathered some wine. I helped in the forge and saw that my brother had already learned a few things. He’d made a bowl from copper and he was scribing it with a stylus – just simple lines, but to me it looked wonderful.
He pulled it from my hand, threw it across the forge and burst into tears. And we embraced, and swore to swap when Pater and Calchas wouldn’t know. It wasn’t an oath either of us meant – we knew we’d never fool an adult – and yet it seemed to comfort us, and I’ve long wondered about which god listened to that oath.
There were changes. Mater was better – that was obvious. The house was clean, the maids were singing and my sister smiled all the time. We had a new slave family – a young man, a Thracian, and his slave wife and their new baby. He didn’t speak much Greek, and Bion didn’t like him, and the man had a big bruise on his face where someone had knocked him down hard . His wife was pretty, and men in the forge yard watched her when she served them wine. Not that Pater allowed anything to happen. That’s where you really betray your slaves, thugater. But I get ahead of myself.
The talk in the forge yard was louder than when I’d left, even two months before, and it was cold outside, so there was a fire in the pit. Skira – the Thracian’s wife – served wine with good grace, and her husband worked the bellows while Bion made a pot. The men in the yard talked about Thebes and plans for the coming Daidala. It was just three years away. Pater was suddenly an important man.
We had a donkey. We’d never had a donkey before, and Pater said he’d send Hermogenes with the donkey to carry the wine for me. That sounded good.
But
So I carried the bow and quiver back down the mountain and sneaked them into his hut, returning the bow to the peg where it hung.
After lessons the next day, I said, ‘Master, I took your bow.’
He was putting away the stylus and the wax sheets he made. He turned so fast that I flinched.
‘Where is it?’ he asked.
‘On its peg,’ I said. I hung my head. ‘I couldn’t string it.’
I never saw his hand move, but suddenly my ear hurt – hurt like fire . ‘That’s for disobedience,’ he said calmly. ‘You want to shoot the bow?’
‘Yes!’ I said. I think I was crying.
He nodded. ‘I’m sending you for more wine,’ he said. ‘When you come back, perhaps we’ll make a bow you can shoot.’ He paused. ‘And we’ll do the dances. The military dances. Now, what letter is this?’ he drew one, and I said ‘Omicron.’
‘Good boy,’ he said.
My ear still hurt, all thirty stades home.
My brother was working in the forge, and he didn’t like it. It’s odd, being brothers. We were alike in so many ways – and we were always friends, even when we were angry – but we wanted different things. He wanted to be a warrior, a nobleman with a retinue and deer hounds. He wanted the life Mater wanted for him. And all I wanted to be was a master smith. Irony is the lord of all, honey. I got what he wanted, and he got a few feet of dirt. But he was a good boy, and he was in the forge doing the job that I would have sold my soul to do. That’s the way of it when you are young.
I showed Mater my letters and sang her the first hundred lines of the Iliad , which Calchas had also taught me, and she nodded and kissed my cheek and gave me a silver pin.
‘At least one of my sons will grow up a gentleman,’ she said. ‘Tell me of this Calchas.’
So I did. I told her all I knew about him, which proved, under her Medusa-like glare, to be little enough. But she smiled when I said he ate black bread and bean soup.
‘An aristocrat, then,’ she said happily. Not my idea of an aristocrat, but Mater knew some things better than her eight-year-old child.
I stayed at home for two days while Pater gathered some wine. I helped in the forge and saw that my brother had already learned a few things. He’d made a bowl from copper and he was scribing it with a stylus – just simple lines, but to me it looked wonderful.
He pulled it from my hand, threw it across the forge and burst into tears. And we embraced, and swore to swap when Pater and Calchas wouldn’t know. It wasn’t an oath either of us meant – we knew we’d never fool an adult – and yet it seemed to comfort us, and I’ve long wondered about which god listened to that oath.
There were changes. Mater was better – that was obvious. The house was clean, the maids were singing and my sister smiled all the time. We had a new slave family – a young man, a Thracian, and his slave wife and their new baby. He didn’t speak much Greek, and Bion didn’t like him, and the man had a big bruise on his face where someone had knocked him down hard . His wife was pretty, and men in the forge yard watched her when she served them wine. Not that Pater allowed anything to happen. That’s where you really betray your slaves, thugater. But I get ahead of myself.
The talk in the forge yard was louder than when I’d left, even two months before, and it was cold outside, so there was a fire in the pit. Skira – the Thracian’s wife – served wine with good grace, and her husband worked the bellows while Bion made a pot. The men in the yard talked about Thebes and plans for the coming Daidala. It was just three years away. Pater was suddenly an important man.
We had a donkey. We’d never had a donkey before, and Pater said he’d send Hermogenes with the donkey to carry the wine for me. That sounded good.
But
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